jackroadkill

How have I missed this?! I'll follow this (bound to be) gargantuan thread with anticipation galore!

Great minds and all that!

Edward, I thought of you today when I took this:

Cheers Mark, am hoping to get some bench time in next week. This week has been a total washout as far as kit-ruining has been concerned, so hopefully I can at least get the plumage sorted and move onto the decals soon.

Good to have you back, old chap!

I reckon so, James, yes. well, I hope so!

Sigh; it was all going so well.... And then I sprayed Mr Clear Coat gloss all over the model and it reacted badly with the red paint that covers the tail. It now looks like orange peel and will have to come off.

After a week of no progress I managed to get some time at the bench this evening. Not that I'm making excuses but I've been working on the farm this week, which takes a lot of time and when I'm done for the day I'm pretty much knackered. A shower and an early bed is about all I can manage! In addition to that I've been learning new songs for my band's upcoming gig, so that's eaten away a large chunk of the weekend. Anyway, I digress; I sprayed the engine and the RLM02 interior. Why did I paint the interior? Well, this is the Entropy GB, right? There's a good chance you may see more of the inside of the airframe than you usually would! So, as I say, not much progress but progress nonetheless. Cheers, JRK

Go on then - surely I can find something that will fit in here. Maybe a Natter or some such foolishness.

Morning Johnny, I used Mig Ammo Concrete and Light Rust pigments over some Starship Streaking. I put the pigments on whilst the streaking was wet to hold them down, waited until it was dry and dusted a lot of hairspray over the pigments to seal them in further. So far, so good. I'm hoping the method works as there's a lot of pigment and other muck and mullock which will need sticking down before this build is out.

I've managed to sit at the bench for a bit this evening, and the scale of the project is starting to dawn on me. I'm going to have to do some comprehensive wrecking of the kit and as the airframe was damaged extensively during the recovery process it's going to have to appear as a "best guess" rather than an absolutely authentic representation. Still, what the hell... Here's the cockpit, in its' nearly finished state. I've got a couple of weathering / seaweed effects to do to it before I close the fuselage up but so far I'm happy with what I've got. I'm waiting on delivery for a couple of bits and bobs to go on top of the muck that's in there already but those hopefully won't take long, as I'm itching to get cracking. There's some serious remodelling of the fuselage needed so the sooner I can get the halves together the better. This is the roughly hogged-out rudder, devoid of the canvas covering. I have gone further with it since the picture was taken and it looks tidier. The process will have to be repeated with the rest of the control surfaces and wingtips before the job is done. So far it just looks like a Bf109G-2.... Give me time! Cheers, JRK

Am slap in the middle of a busy weekend but managed to get some muck into the cockpit: There's some Mig Ammo Starship Streaking under those pigments. It looks a little better in real life, but this is still the early stages. Cheers, JRK

Thanks very much to Beatrix and @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies , who went above and beyond the call of duty to get a parcel of of Colourcoats paint to me after UPS screwed the delivery this means that I have been able to make some noticeable progress with the build. The yellow identification stripes are now on the wings and the trims tabs are the correct black: Unfortunately there'll need to be a bit of bodgery to get the drop tanks to fit, as Eduard and Tamiya kits seem to have slightly different pylons; I'm not overly concerned about this though, and it shouldn't take too long to get them hung. I think the next job will be a gloss coat and the decals. It's great to be getting on well now, and the decals herald the next stage. Cheers, JRK

Absolutely superb build, Heather, and a fantastic presentation and write-up. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you can build a larger and/or more complex kit so quickly and with such great results. I wish I could have half of your output and creativity.

Wooo, paint has arrived! I won't bore you with the backstory but it is here, so I wasted no time in doing this: I also remembered to do the prop tips, which is usually something I comprehensively forget. Given that I started my entry for the Entropy GB yesterday and have a really busy couple of weeks ahead of me, bench time will be at a premium. I've also got the MiG-21R that needs finishing off and a Malta Spit that's currently parked for a rainy day. I'm planning to concentrate on this build and the Entropy build first and foremost, with the MiG as back-up should I find time to attend to it. Cheers, JRK

Shame about the base, but you'll sort it.

It really is far too good to be treating in this manner (so far at least) - it's like making a sow's ear out of a silk purse, somehow. Still, I have plenty of other Eduard 109's in my stash, so I'll get over the trauma with their help! Oddly, I've never built an Eduard 109, even though I have.... several.

I'll start this thread with a disclosure; I fully expect not to finish the build on time. I've bitten off much more than I can chew in terms of the build and the complicated nature of the "weathering" (more on this as the thread develops), added to the fact that I'll have to significantly hack the kit around, try new techniques, soak aluminium foil in hydrochloric acid etc etc to get anything like the results I want to achieve. I'm going to be cagey about what I'm doing, but feel free to guess what I'm up to (apart from you, James @81-er!). I have other builds on the go at the moment, including one for the Southern Europe GB which has been seriously delayed by UPS and their inability to tell Coventry and Wales apart. I didn't want to start this build until I'd finished the SE build, but I'm certain that if I leave it any longer I definitely won't, as opposed to most likely won't, get it to the finish line in time. As it is I'll have to learn a lot very quickly and apply what I learn even faster in order to get anywhere near finished on time, never mind with the build looking anything at all like I want it to. Here's the kit. It's a shame in a way to commit the atrocities that await it, because it's a superb kit. I looked for a cheaper kit, and found the HobbyBoss one but didn't think it will cut the mustard, especially with the modifications that will be necessary. I have a Hi-Tech Model engine for the build which may or may not get used, depending on how well I can get progress things. Despite Hi-Tech Model claiming that it's for the G-2 and G-6 it has das beule built into the vacformed cowling, so if I do use it I'll have to get rid of those somehow, as the G2 didn't have them. All I've done so far is the RLM66 on the cockpit interior. Next jobs will be to get the details done and start building up the airframe, I suppose. Cheers, JRK

Wow, that looks superb, Heather!

Cheers @81-er, this one's on the back burner now because my ongoing paint saga means that the Mustang build for the Southern Europe GB is stalled. I've also decided to start my Entropy GB build, so the bench is busy and I've never had so many part done builds on the go, not a state of affairs I'm comfortable with!

Ha, you should know by now you're my own personal ego-masseur! Cheers, Andre, the paints are Humbrol enamels for the main camo colours, the underside and wheel bays are Colourcoats enamels and the lurid interior is Mig Ammo's Soviet Cockpit Turquoise. Variety really is the spice of life!

Sure have - it'll be Captain Andrew Turner's Skipper's Darlin' III. If UPS ever get the fingers out of their backsides I might even actually be able to paint the yellow wing bands this side of the next bloody ice age,

As a young lad one of my first automotive jobs was to "fix the rust on Mum's car". It was a W reg Metro, so you can guess how well that went. We started with a hole in the OS wing you could put your finger through and finished with a hole you could have driven sheep through.

So quick to corrode that it left the oxygen molecules out of breath!

Or it could be that the rust is waiting to be applied to Metros as they roll of the line in 1982.